I'll leave the room and we'll test the evening.

I'd like to call the traffic and parking board public hearing to order for Monday, March the 23rd, 2026 at 7 p.m.

Yep.

April.

April.

Yes, I am.

Okay, let's forward over now in the equipment.

You guys took off your book of invisibility there.

We don't need to read that.

Can you go back?

The April 27th, 2026 meeting.

April 27th.

Meeting of the traffic and parking board is being held at the Department of Transportation and Environmental Services, TNES, 2900 Business Center Drive and electronically.

Members of the traffic and parking board and staff are participating either in person or from a remote location to video conference call on Zoom.

Meaning, can we be accept accessed by the public in person or via Zoom?

Okay.

So we've got a public hearing.

So we still max go.

Thanks.

Okay.

So we're gonna start uh so public.

We'll get to you in a minute.

Um we're gonna start with uh elections.

So do I have uh so this is gonna be the election for the board chair and vice chair, and so I would like to open the floor for nominations for the chair.

Any I would like to nominate you, DC King for chair.

Oh thank you.

And any other nations and vote on this one that's just yes, I did speakers in the green.

So you guys are hearing me okay with uh as I spin back and forth.

Okay.

Um so uh all those in favor of the nominee say aye.

Uh opposed.

Okay, then we've taken care of that.

I'll be the chair.

I I promise I won't serve more than three months.

And next we need to do the uh election of a vice chair.

I nominate Annie Evers.

Okay, is there second all the oh are there any other nominations?

None.

All those in favor of Annie serving as vice chair.

Uh opposed.

Okay, we finished that.

That was quick and easy.

Good.

Thank you.

Uh the next item is the election of traffic and parking board, a excuse me, election of a traffic and parking board representative for the transportation commission.

And I would just note that that uh session wouldn't uh take effect until the uh September meeting.

September are there any nominations I'm sorry.

I would like to nominate Kirsten.

Okay.

Do I have any other nominations?

Well, I guess I'm self-dominating just to throw my hat in the ring if you don't mind.

Okay.

Um so uh just by way of background, so if you're not familiar with my background, I have uh 40 plus years of experience in the transportation sector more than 25 years with the New Jersey Department of Transportation uh left there as a commissioner for planning and project development.

The past 15 years or so I have been active as independent transportation.

So we're just based here and working in projects around the country, but principally in recent years, uh helping out nonprofits and advocacy groups and environmental so forth.

So I do have an interest.

And I look badly, but I thought it would put it forward and should I uh get on the transportation commission now or the future?

I would certainly do my best to uh faithfully record information back and forth to the board.

So just wanted to say that thank you.

Is there a second to the non-action?

I'll second it just so we have the complete.

Okay, so uh we've got two candidates.

Uh all those in favor of Kirsten.

Say aye.

I that's two, three, four.

All those in favor of Mark.

You won't you're gonna actually make it unanimous for yourself.

Okay, I'll move it in there.

All right, so then we've got Kirsten to represent us starting in uh September.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

If you haven't already, uh I would encourage you to go dive into some of the uh evening minutes.

Um of course I'm more than happy to answer any questions you might have as I step away from it.

If you'd like to come to one of the meetings, you're also certainly working from together.

Uh actually there's only me and June meeting, so there won't be a lot of take a look and see.

Okay, good.

Uh thank you.

And Mark, uh, thank you for your background.

I think that uh staff should sort of keep that in mind just occasionally add hot uh openings come along and uh I think it would be useful to do that.

Thank you.

Stay long enough.

Good to replace Christian.

All right.

Okay, now we're gonna go to uh deferrals and uh withdrawals.

Next we're gonna go to the meeting minutes for March the 23rd, which was last month's meetings.

Are there any questions or comments about the meeting on meeting minutes?

Um motion to approve.

Any is there a second?

Christian seconded.

Uh all those in favor say aye.

Uh aye.

Opposed.

So that's six zero.

Um, I actually if I could uh I would just note that we do have a new number filming next month.

On the board yet, but uh glad to have you here.

It's Rebecca, right?

Rosemary.

Rosemary, well, I got the R right.

Okay, um, so moving on.

We're now in the public discussion period.

Uh just a reminder that uh this gives members of the public an opportunity to speak on any item that is not on our uh current agenda.

You'd like to speak during the public discussion period, please fill out a form in person and then online raise your hand when uh you're asked to speak.

And uh just a reminder that you're limited uh three minutes.

Uh hope to cut you off so that we can keep the meeting going.

Uh so we have any we have speakers in the room.

Uh we have two speakers who are currently signed up in the room, so we'll call them first and then we'll move to folks online.

So if you're interested in speaking online, please use the raise your hand function and we will call on you.

After we've had heard from the people in the room.

So we'll start with Alina Surakina, followed by Bill uh if you do.

Yeah, I think I'm speaking.

All right.

Uh hello everyone.

My name is Elena Sarakina, and I live in Seminary Walk.

It is a community pretty close to here.

Um on Sky Hill and Dartmouth.

Uh, we have kind of parallel to West Taylor Ron, but we are not connected to Duke Street.

It's uh dead end there.

Uh it's a call de SAC.

Uh, and I'm here to request um that the speed limit on our state um be lowered.

I serve on our HOA board as uh as a director at large and speeding in the neighborhood comes up below during our meetings uh in the community and uh during our board meetings as well.

We have pretty large community.

We have 20 buildings, 20 apartment buildings, uh 208 units total, so several hundred residents.

Um the span of Sky Hill that I'm talking about.

I've measured really roughly, it's about a quarter of a mile, but I might be wrong about this.

Um again, it's a call de sac, it's also dead end on Darm uh on the Dharma side and on like Duke side.

Um we are not connected to single family neighborhood cover park or that are the Dharma site.

Um, because of our density, we have pretty uh, you know, large amount of children, elderly people walking their dogs.

Uh we also have a lot of delivery drivers going in and out of the neighborhood um times of day, um, which is difficult because of our road design.

It's a narrow road with cars parked on both sides of the street.

Um, and parking situation also creates a lot of blind spots uh when you go in and out of our buildings.

Um we have many kids traveling to schools when in a mandatory like walk zone for uh MacArthur.

So kids have to walk or ride their bikes.

So we also have uh bus stops and for middle school and high school and kids in the morning congregate there.

Um again, we've got aging folks, um people walking their dogs with uh mandatory or return to your office, traffic on West Taylor on became really intense.

Um during rush hour, especially and uh there's some spillage into our street uh uh cars coming at higher speed from West Taylor on people report close calls, uh report other minor traffic incidents.

We caught a police officer meeting hour um at our meeting last week, and uh we asked if we can have additional patrols.

Um, and unfortunately uh the police force does not have that resources to have additional patrols.

So I'm asking if we can have the speed lower to 15, if we can have additional signage or other speedy mitigation measures in our community.

Our president um cold transportation and serve environmental services.

They told us to come here, and uh here we are.

And um, if you can tell me what the next steps might be to make that happen for our community, that would be thank you very much.

Um there is a safety program.

If we could get her that information, uh uh that would be uh helpful, I think.

The I'm not sure we can bring the speedland down to 15.

I think 20 is what this the state has given the city permission for, but uh they certainly uh staff can certainly look into that for you.

It's called there's a program called the Neighborhood Transportation Improvement Program, and I can I have your email.

I can send it to you.

Um it allows neighborhoods to apply.

Um they have specific safety ideas.

All right, I'll send I have so much.

Our next speaker is Billy.

You're seeing here.

Thank you all.

Nice to see you.

Great to be here.

Uh I live in Old Town North on North Royal Street and uh uh right next to the power plant.

And uh the reason I'm here is because I may be confused from a jurisdictional standpoint as to who can solve the problem as we see it right now.

We've got a situation in which Old Town North has got two major development programs going on, one at uh uh one at Tidelock, and we've got another one uh that's uh on Montgomery Street.

Uh we run into uh parking problems uh in a very big way uh because the developers sign off uh as part of their DSUP uh uh approval process uh for what they're gonna do in terms of off-site parking, and then they don't do it, and there's not enough people in the enforcement business uh to fix that, and there's very little that the parking enforcement people can do because the signage isn't right and it doesn't address those kinds of things.

Is that something that is in your bailiwick or not?

I understand that Tony uh Lakala uh is the guy in planning and zoning who's got the enforcement and the rest of that uh sort of uh has got that as part of his portfolio.

Uh do you all get engaged in that in any way?

That's my question.

So no, the short answer is no.

Uh the the agreement is uh established through kind of the planning uh process, uh which generally specifies that the developers are supposed to provide parking for the people who are kind to work on that site, and oftentimes that's off site, and then they need to provide transportation to bring them about here, not be parking on the street.

Now, this could be subcontractors as opposed to the on the contractor themselves, but I think the enforcement for this needs to go back through the planning and zoning and zone.

So Lakala's the right guy to talk to about this.

Okay, all right.

Thank you all for letting me talk.

If you're if you're you get non-response on that, you certainly are in escalate into uh planning commission or uh back over city council because those are the entities that sort of would that prefer to solve the problem at the lowest level possible.

That isn't then yeah, escalation.

But you know, we've been seeing a lot of that lately, so let's not get directly.

Thank you.

Thank you for your presentation.

Is that for all for in person?

Those are all the unless anybody else wants to submit a speaker form in person for the public discussion period.

Not uh, we'll move to folks online again.

If you're interested in speaking um during the public discussion period and you're online participating, please use the raise your hand function.

We'll call on you.

We're currently not seeing anybody with our hands raised, but we'll wait another minute here before we close the public discussion period.

Not seeing anybody.

Okay, good.

And from last month, actually two months ago, yeah, not a thing button.

Okay, so item number written staff updates.

Anyone have any questions on parking enforcement?

So sorry, I keep putting on a check that travel back as well.

I'll introduce this one.

Um we have Sergeant JV Gernott, who's in charge of our parking enforcement division, as well as he has other roles with the police department.

He's joining us this evening to give an update on parking enforcement.

It's been a while since you all have received an update on parking enforcement.

So he's here to provide what's been going on.

Um answer any questions you all might have.

Max, would you go to the next slide, please?

Just a little bit of background.

I know um parking enforcement has been a priority of the board for you know many years at this point.

Um, and so I just have a decade.

Yes, I just want to provide some context to this discussion um and where this is coming from.

And so every year when the board puts together their budget priority and legislative priorities, parking enforcement is always a part of that discussion.

In fact, um parking enforcement or enforcement general was the number one priority in the traffic and parking board's budget priority letter to city council.

So um just to give you all a refresher, it's been a while since we worked on this, but um the meat of of what you all put together with that was that they want you wanted to see that compliance with parking and traffic safety regulations.

Um done, so you earn the trust of residents about the effectiveness of regulation.

And another um part of that was improving efficiency through the use of technology.

And then in your legislative uh priority letters, um, you asked to be able to issue tickets as appropriate uh by mail to state level, and also to be able to use cameras as appropriate.

Um so just I wanted to provide some context that this has been an ongoing partnership um between our team and um parking enforcement.

Jamie's done a great job.

He can introduce himself if it's been um maybe about three years leading this leading this charge, and he's done some great work that he's gonna share with you all.

So we'll turn it over to to him.

He's joining online.

Excuse me, before he he starts it.

I would certainly note that one of the things I can remember in the early years as on the board was constantly had people coming almost every meeting to speak about parking enforcement, and that certainly has tapered off.

Either they uh, you know, I think we have finally at least gotten the handle on a small piece of the of the problem and it camped down the concern that residents were constantly having about.

I think that's been a big plus for the city.

Um Sergeant Jamie Kernot.

Um I've been with the police department for about 20 years, uh serving in the role as the uh sergeant over top of parking enforcement for the last three years.

Uh it's been an interesting change of pace for me coming from patrol, but uh it's been a long learning process.

But I feel like we're on a decent path with getting some uh technology and some other initiatives in place.

Uh to give you guys a little background on the parking enforcement staffing as it currently stands.

Uh currently we are approved to have two supervisors and 23 parking enforcement officers.

Unfortunately, we're a little below that.

Right now, our current staffing consists of one supervisor.

We lost our other evening supervisor uh probably a few months ago.

She changed over to head up the school crossing guard program.

Uh like I said, we are at 12 parking enforcement hires or 12 full-time parking enforcement officers.

We've had no new hires since 2023.

We've had one process since then, and we did not get anyone through there.

And since then, it's been a little bit of a challenge to get another process underway with our uh HR department.

Um approved staffing levels, like I said, they've kind of gone down a little bit.

Um city is taking a few away from us come July 1st of 2026.

We will still be permitted to have two supervisors, but they're cutting down our staffing to 17 parking enforcement officers due to some budgetary cuts.

Uh in 2023, in December of 2023, we introduced our parking contractors.

This was to supplement uh existing parking enforcement along the King Street corridor and meant to supplement our parking enforcement efforts due to the constraint on uh parking enforcement officers, uh the city parking enforcement officers in the Sydney vacancies and the lack of response time to try and get that better for the citizens.

Um city parking enforcement um through proactive patrol and responsive enforcement.

We've been out there working as much as we can, but unfortunately, this this has really helped out a lot.

Um the parking contractors were we're looking to expand this program to the weekends.

The city council has approved for us to get two part-time parking enforcement contractors for the weekend, still work 10 hours on Saturday and 10 hours on Sunday.

So two each day working from 7 o'clock in the morning till 5 o'clock in the evening.

So there are our parking operating hours.

The parking contractors during the weekdays work from 11 or 7 a.m.

to 11 p.m.

They are strictly on the King Street corridor, working from the waterfront up to the metro station, and they work two blocks north and two blocks south of King Street.

They are typically only working, only official sign violations.

You're blocking fire hydrants, no parking here at a corner, uh metered zones, loading zones.

They get into a little bit of the residential zones, but those are right on the border of where they're allowed to work.

Um, they're not certified of for VSAN or NCIC, therefore they can't run tags, so they're not allowed to do any towing or impounding or anything like that.

And those are strictly their duties, and they just work on foot patrol.

So they are just out on foot walking up and down the King Street corridor.

There's three in the morning during the weekdays and three in the evening.

So the morning crew works from seven to three, and the evening crew works from three to eleven.

Our parking officers work seven days a week, um, 6 a.m.

to midnight.

That was one of the changes that I had to implement when I first got there prior to me getting there.

They were working 24-7, but due to the lack of officers that we currently had in our staffing situation, I was tasked with trying to come up with a better schedule for them that would more handle the calls for service and higher complaint times that we were receiving.

So we kind of did a study on when tickets were being issued, when complaints were being logged, and from what we felt came up with.

This is the time, these were the times that kind of hit the the high points of that.

Um they cover the entire city.

They are in vehicles compared to the contractors.

Uh, and they are NCIC and VCN certified, so they can handle everything and anything in the city.

Um they boot a ton of vehicles, towing to impounding, clearing the HOVs in the morning.

They're also tasked with uh doing school crossing guard duties.

So whenever our school crossing guards are out for sick leave or just staff for whatever reason, uh the PEOs are the first ones that get called in to help fill in those spots.

That has been much alleviated when school crossing guards kind of went the same way that the PEOs did and uh hired a bunch of contractors to help them out.

They now employ more contractors than they hire uh school crossing guards to currently run that program.

But we still run into issues where we have to fill in on a pretty regular basis.

They're doing school crossing guard duties.

Um they also are PEOs come out and help with uh special events uh with just blocking traffic uh and moving vehicles off of routes when we have races or parades or anything like that.

Uh when there's major power outages, they're another resource for us to use to come out and help direct traffic.

Place uh uh one of our PEOs is always in charge of the traffic ban of getting out stop signs and cones and everything else to that helps us with that.

They also handle all the 311 complaints and any calls for service that come into the city.

So they they stay quite busy all day long.

Next slide.

Um we earlier this year or last year, late last year, we did a uh presentation to city council.

And so a lot of these next slides you're gonna see are slides that we used in the presentation for city council when we are petitioning to get the additional hires from there.

The first question, uh, one of the questions they had from us is had the use of contractors improved enforcement across the city.

And the findings uh found that in with the help of the city contractors, it increased enforcement citywide and within the pilot area, increase in paid street parking since the start of the pilot.

Next slide.

Has the contractor allowed the city to become more responsive to calls across the city?

Findings reduced response time to non-emergency parking calls and reduced time to close three one parking complaints.

So with the assist of the city parking contractors, it really helped us to get out there in a more timely fashion to help or to work on the non-emergency parking calls for service along with the three on one complaints.

So that's been a they better help.

Next slide.

Uh parking contractor summary.

The through uh we had some assistance from IT and people in City Hall that ran all the numbers for us and did all the background work, and they found that the contractor presence boosted overall enforcement efficiency and parking sign compliance.

Contractor contribution to improvements in response times to resident inquiries on parking and the contract-enabled police to issue more safety-related citations.

So we along with everything else with the change of the schedule and everything, uh, we found that our police officers started issuing more parking citations.

So I think without having our park our PEOs there during the overnight hours and having calls for service, it started getting to our our patrol officers going out and issuing tickets, which is a great thing.

It's part of their duties as well to get out there and help out with these things.

Um again, like I stated earlier, the program changes.

We're looking for two, we are been approved to hire two part-time employees to work Saturday and Sunday from 5 a.m.

to 5 p.m.

Uh, we're looking for those hours to be a little flexible as long as well as the geographical areas.

That's something that we're currently in negotiations with the uh the contractor company where we've been in communication with them about doing these things to make it so that we could possibly flex these work.

They've been a great asset on the King Street corridor.

So we're looking at possibly being able to move them into other areas of the city along with other time frames to help tackle tackle other persistent issues that we see pop up.

Um kind of giving them a little bit more leeway in where they can be and what times they can be there.

Uh the parking technology updates.

Um the technology license uh we've gotten ourselves with the help of TNES and uh the VDOC grant, we are able to procure 10 license plate readers for the parking enforcement officers that are mounted on their their vehicles.

We got these installed last year.

We've worked through a lot of technical and other difficulties, but they are now being used.

Not the full max to capacity, but very close to it.

We're still working through a few more kinks.

They've been tremendous in helping us get scofflaw hits.

Uh, those are vehicles that are boot eligible.

Uh, it's been a tremendous asset for our PEOs before they were going out and just looking for vehicles after being notified they're boot eligible.

Now they don't have to look at every car they're passing.

They can the license plate reader picks them up and lets them know when a vehicle they passed is uh boot eligible or impound eligible.

Um, these have also been a tremendous asset for parking meters.

Uh that's one of the areas that the PEOs have given me feedback on that they're finding they're very useful and it's working great for the meters.

So we are getting some positive feedback on it, but still working out some of the residential time zone issues that we'd really like to get it working on.

Um, but our technology crew is working with the vendor to get those kinks worked out as we talk.

Um not sure why those numbers aren't up for this.

The parking complaints, we get them for 311 and through calls for service.

Um I know I ran the numbers, I thought I put them in there.

I know we are last year we ran almost 900 uh 911 complaints and approximately 3,000 parking complaints if memory serves correct.

Um I don't know what happened with that, but they were in there.

Hold on, let me see if they're show up in mine.

Nope, I don't know what happened to that.

Um, I'm sorry I don't have those exact numbers.

I know I ran them and I thought I put them in there.

Somehow I missed that.

Um, my apologies.

Uh any questions for me.

Uh Jamie, thanks uh very much.

Yeah, uh thank you, Sergeant, for the uh uh for the update.

Uh, you had a quote you mentioned in your presentation that you have had an attrition of uh PEOs.

Uh and you have had a problem backfilling uh authorized and paid positions.

Can you tell us a little bit more about the personal problem?

Is the attrition just a normal attrition you have in any job?

And what is the difficulty in backfilling those positions?

Yeah, I mean, it's I would say pretty close.

Not as bad as I'd say the police attrition rate is, but we've had attrition, people retiring, medical issues, people leaving to where they wanted a lot of people use parking enforcement as a stepping stone to try and get into law enforcement.

So we've had a couple leave for for other opportunities in law enforcement.

We've had some retirees, we've had a couple people leave for medical issues, so it's just your normal attrition uh issues that everybody kind of deals with.

The problem with the backfill is is that our HR department is having a lot of openings that they've been trying to fill fill throughout the department, and so they've had to their short staff themselves, and so they've had to prioritize what positions they are focusing on.

And then I can tell you one of the key focuses has been on uh police officers because our police depart our police forces had quite the attrition rate, and there's been a massive effort to try and fill those spots, and it's not just us, it's all throughout the the country that people are agencies are having trouble filling those positions.

So there's been a little bit of a we've again, we've only had one process uh in the last three years.

We've uh since I've been there, I think we've only hired three PEOs that are still currently with us.

So it's it's been a little tough, and uh we keep on trying to get them in.

And uh uh we're we're trying to make some changes to our hiring processes because I can tell you one of the issues we have heard is in talking to our current PEOs that we hired is that our park our process is just too long.

It takes somewhat anywhere from six to nine months to get through the entire process, and people just aren't gonna wait that long.

So it's one of the things that we're looking at to see what we can trim off to make it quicker.

So I guess I uh two questions.

One is kind of a follow-up to the sort of the BHR issue.

Um if we're leaning heavily on contractors, is there a specific program within that that would sort of provide after an onboarding period for them to be able to be converted to actual parking enforcement?

Is that a program?

We'd love to do that, but we also don't want to upset our parking contract company by stealing away the officers that they're they're hiring for their own company.

And so I know we we don't want it, it's a tricky situation.

Yeah.

Um and the second question I had is you mentioned flexible flexible geographic areas.

Are you looking at like specific areas, let's say Del Ray, or are you looking at sort of a more kind of uh if it's a slow day that they'll be able to extend out to more of old town more generally, or or what's the sort of consideration there?

There was, I believe, three key areas that we've talked about, and one of them was possibly the Delray area, the Mount Vernon Corridor, along with I believe the Lincolnia area and Sanger Avenue.

I think those were the three primary ones that we are we had been uh on our radar to expand to.

And then possible other areas if issues come up.

Are you said any question?

Um thanks so much for this presentation.

It's really helpful.

Um you mentioned the license plate readers.

Um I was curious.

Um, what vendor do we use for that?

And like is that information sort of closed universe information, or is that shared across like law enforcement, other law enforcement agencies?

It's Genitech is the the company that we're getting our we've got our LPRs through.

Are you asking if the data from the license plate readers being shared?

Yes, is it is the data like the license plate data shared or run through other so it doesn't connect to other systems, I guess.

No, no, it's it's very isolated, it's not allowed to be shared with anyone else.

Um Virginia law is very specific about what license plate readers can be used for.

Parking enforcement's given a little bit of uh its own caveat there is that it's as long as it's because license plate readers in law enforcement, they're they're now have a they have to give reports back to the state on what they've used it for and what came of these stops and everything associated with the LPRs.

Parking enforcement, as long as it's only used for writing parking tickets and not used for any other law enforcement function, is exempt from those aspects.

So this parking enforcement system is only being used for parking enforcement.

It is not even being shared with our own detectives or law our own uh police department.

Um only three people have access to it.

It's myself, my lieutenant, and my captain.

And it can only be authorized to be shared with the rest of the department through my captain.

And we have not done that one time.

We've had requests to come out, and I've had to uh tell them that it's for parking enforcement only, and we we can't share any of the information that we we garner from it.

Do you want to talk about how the data is if can you guys get rid of it after uh 21 days or no?

Yeah, after 21 days, it's perched from the system.

So we don't we don't hold on to it for long ourselves.

We we could hold on to it for longer.

21 days is the standard for law enforcement, but since we're not giving it to law enforcement, we could retain it longer, but we have no reason to hold it longer than that.

All right, thanks for your presentation.

Um, I'm wondering what kind of revenue we get from parking enforcement and like wouldn't have more and for I understand that's a their budget concerns about adding more people to the TO, but or hiring more positions, but wouldn't would they pay for themselves if we got had enough enforcement?

All those numbers were presented to city council, but I don't have them in front of me as far as what they they bring in.

I know that was one of the big things that we talked about during that presentation is the cost of PEOs versus the parking contractors, and it came out to where I think our PEOs were a little bit more cost efficient per ticket, but I don't have the total revenue for the total year.

Thank you.

Uh yeah, Jamie, thanks very much for this presentation.

I've got a couple questions.

Um so in terms of the flexibility of the contractors, uh, currently I think you said they're on foot patrol.

So if you had them flexing somewhere else, would the city have to provide them cars or would the contractor provide them cars?

They would just have to respond there in their own personal vehicle and park there and then work that area for the day.

Okay.

Um in terms of the license plate readers, when you guys uh read license plate, I'm sure oftentimes you get out of state plates in the in the mix.

And when I ride around, I I certainly notice a lot of out-of-state plates, and some of them don't park very well.

And um do we ticket the out-of-state uh uh cars just as much as the Virginia plates?

Yeah, I mean, if they're parked illegally, we'll give them a ticket.

If you're asking as far as the residential zones and out-of-state plates being parked within those zones, that's part of the issue we're having right now with getting the residential zones covered, getting the we can't fully use it because we're we're having a little bit of issue getting the information from the finance department of who has a residential permit to be parked in those zones over to our vendor.

Once we get that, then we can fully use that whole system.

So that's in process right now.

The that is, yeah, exactly.

That's currently in the works.

I must say also I have uh it seems like I've noticed more vehicles being booted um as I as I ride around.

And it looks like you're using a different type of boot.

Is that uh have you guys upgraded your boot?

Yeah, we upgraded them.

We now get them from a company up in Canada.

We were finding that some of the boots we previously had were deteriorating quickly.

So we we did a little bit of searching around and found a company up there that makes some very good boots for us.

If we just uh put up to our fine or our finance department to get a few more boots with these license plate readers were deploying a lot of our boots and need to get a few more to be able to keep on the process going.

So, how many boots do you put on a month?

A month, I would say several hundred.

Wow.

And you get a boot after three tickets.

Yeah, once you have three tickets that are overdue.

Uh so one of the uh things I've always been intrigued by is sort of that uh crossing guard duty.

Um is that something your staff enjoys doing, or is it just a duty of they know we get a lot of complaints from them when they have to do that?

They they they despise having to do it, but unfortunately it's one of those things that's a safety issue for this kids getting to school, and we're the first ones that get called up for it.

After we get called in, then they start dabbling into the police officers.

They'll they'll go to the traffic unit and then over to detectives, and if need be to patrol officers.

They really try to make the patrol officers last line of defense just because they already have enough on their plate with just answering the calls for service.

But we've had to go there before.

So even though the school now is able to use uh contractor cars crossing cards, they still have trouble staffing those positions also.

Yeah, I think this year, by the end of the school year, they would the city had lost three of their school crossing guards, and they worked with the contractor to try and get the some of those filled, but while they're out, we're filling in those spots.

So and I think it was close enough to the end of the year where they weren't able to get these spots filled and we're still out there working them.

I think they have one medical and two people retire.

I know one of them might see all the time, she's no longer there.

She was very steady eddy, and then one day she wasn't, she retired.

So uh in terms of the 3-1 and 9-1-1 calls, have you seen those continue to increase or are they going down or are they about the same year over year?

They're I would say pretty close to year over year.

We get flexes.

Well, one year we'll be down a little bit, next year we're up a little bit, but pretty consistent.

I think this last year we were possibly down a little bit, if I if memory serves me right from our presentation to city council.

And then kind of my last question uh is related to delivery vehicles.

Um routinely parked just about anywhere they choose to park.

Are do you guys ticket those vehicles?

Talking about that.

Are you talking about like food, like the the big massive trucks or the like Uber Eats kind of delivery?

Sorry?

Package delivery package delivery.

Yeah, yes.

So I know because we just had three one complain about this, is like uh so our regular mail delivery, USBS.

They are we can't really ticket their vehicles because they're federal vehicles, and so federal federal vehicles have immunity from tickets, basically because the federal government doesn't have to pay them because it goes to the vehicle, not the driver.

Um, as far as other drive delivery vehicles, we do get out there.

We try to give them tickets.

We are just running an operation over in Potomac Yards because we were getting a complaint about Uber Eats and those type of vehicles coming in and just parking in the handicapped spots, getting the drinks and running.

So we were over there working on it for the last two weeks.

Unfortunately, I think that they see the officers vehicles and they curb their willingness to park in those spots while we're around.

So we it wasn't very fruitful, but we we were trying and tried parking in different areas to be in the area without rate in front, but they I think they still spotted us or put us on the map or whatever have you, where they knew we were there.

So it's been it's a little tough getting them sometimes.

But presumably, if you were able to use your contractors, they wouldn't be showing up in a parking enforcement vehicle.

Yeah, but they're only on King Street, and they they are down there.

I know we we got complaints about uh from some of the coffee shops about them targeting those vehicles.

So we had to tell them to make sure that they're they're working the entire King Street corridor, not just hitting every uh car that pulled up to the to the coffee shop.

So to be a little bit more just discretion about getting everything and not just concentrating on one thing.

Yeah, Jamie.

I thought you had said you guys were hiring some additional contractors with flexibility flexible routes.

We we plan on it, but they're not there yet.

Like we haven't actually hired them yet, they're in the process.

That's like we're currently working on that.

Any uh other questions?

Uh thank you very much uh for the presentation and the information.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

Now we can get to item seven written staff updates.

So are there any questions or comments?

I have a more general question, so I'm good for that.

Um I have two questions.

Uh I'm not sure who's whose staff on this.

Which is the two you want.

Well, I've got one on Holland Lane and one on Raddock Road.

Ashley.

Um, I've got one for half and one overarching both just comments.

Okay.

No question, uh, about about something that's not on the staff updates.

So okay.

How about all that?

Dina.

Um, so I heard Holland Lane.

What was your other one?

Raddock Road.

Okay.

So how could you forget that one?

Holland Lane is under the current upcoming projects.

So yeah.

Okay, so that's under item A.

So we'll start with A question.

Okay, we'll drive you my question.

Okay.

Uh Holland Lane.

So that uh project is, I know going forward, and I was not here when that was approved.

But I do have a question because I know typically we do sort of like before and after the show change and traffic patterns and that sort of thing.

Uh, I didn't know if this would include uh the effects on James Avenue.

The reason being as we as we come down to the Duke Street thing, there is um Jamison Avenue, which forms sort of a connector between Hollyway and Duke Street.

Uh I don't know to what extent it will be affected by potential additional traffic, additional movements once Holland Lane uh goes through its road diet.

Uh and it would be good to know because there's some other issues on Jameson Avenue, uh, what the sort of before and after is in terms of traffic volume for any other effects, and we put that in the or something for whoever's following up on Holland Lane.

Yeah, so is he probably going to repay um and the market?

It should all go in hopefully next week or next week, and then we'll be able to ask Alex Carroll, the project manager from Fortnite.

Right.

Thank you.

And you said you segment was Braddock Road.

So uh Braddock Road.

Um I note that the appeal update is is noted uh on the docket that the city council is going to be done on May 16th.

Um shortly after we approved City's Raddock Road project.

Wamada published their proposal for a joint development project on their property at Brad around Braddock Road Metro, which would involve converting some property that they use for parking and so on into uh mixed use development, which is all well good.

I'm favored that.

But we also have significant impact potentially on city streets, including uh uh Braddock Road and uh West Street and probably some other things according to their plans in particular.

Uh noted from sort of looking at the uh the sketch plans.

Uh I noted from sort of looking at the uh the sketch plans, but I know their sketch plan is very preliminary, but when I compare it with our sketch plan, there appears to be a direct conflict with what the city has planned in segment one of the Braddock Road improvements.

So I guess I would like to see number one, make sure that city staff is going to be coordinating with Lamotta, and number two, uh I would hope this would be an opportunity to broaden the community uh involvement and community planning process around Braddock Road, which frankly has not been 100% successful.

Uh and I don't think any of us is happy with sort of the state of play of uh how the community's responding to those improvements.

I think we have an opportunity to potentially revisit some of those issues and do some fine tuning and bring some more people from the community in, particularly as this project has now uh gotten bigger and is affecting a lot of things.

What gonna be a lot of moving pieces here, a lot of moving parts on the transit side, vehicular traffic, bus moving all around.

This affects potentially the bicycle uh lanes, which we worked out on access and uh and certainly could affect parking here and along Braddock Road.

So I guess my question is uh is staff going to be coordinating with Bomada on making sure these pieces all fit.

And number two, would you consider making it a possibility having a broader planning process for the region that would involve some what I consider some more genuine community planning, bringing in some consultants to specialize in this sort of thing, and trying to come up with some solutions that are going to be viable, uh fully designed and detailed, and also having a more robust support in the community.

Long-winded question, but I think you take my point.

So from what I and we can provide a full written update on this.

Um our transportation engineering and planning team was working directly on this uh exact thing and provided comments to Wamada specifically on this plan.

Now, this is as you said, a highly conceptual plan, and from what I understand about it, everything would have to go through the city approval process.

This is just high level, and then if a developer was going to come forward and develop that parcel, they would have to go through city city processes, which at that point would involve full design and that.

But I can provide you a full written update from the engineering and planning staff on exactly and then your second part of your question about the broader planning process for the region.

I can as well.

Okay, thank you.

Thanks, Mark.

Uh somebody said D.

I didn't comment on that.

Yeah, thanks for the update on this.

Um is the city going to be redirecting bicycle traffic to the Fort Melon Trail when they're doing construction uh through 2029.

We're gonna have to ask the DBI folks if that's sort of their plan.

Um adding some alternate routes.

Um, the alternate routes would be quite challenging.

Circuitous, but it's like such I've been riding through that construction zone every day, and it's um not fun.

Uh it would be great if they could consider the people who use that about switch assembly.

Even if hot hole repair could come find that street, that would be pretty cool.

I think they've declared they finished with pothole recair, but that street could I see.

Yes, this says they will not be west in the room.

Unless that's uh and then uh we had an F the West Braddock Road project.

That was me.

Okay.

Um that I would re so that one I know is one that um likely has been of interest for a long time, and I would um request that uh staff engage as much as possible with the schools in the area, and if they have any ideas on how we can um get feedback from the school from the school board from school.

I know there's um like school students who participate through the city of Alexandria as representatives.

Um just kind of open to ideas on how to be as um inclusive as possible in terms of making sure that they're part of any changes.

So far, the school board has not really, as far as I can tell, shown a whole lot of interest in figuring out how to get kids sleeping from one place to another.

Um it would be great if we could figure out how to engage them.

If I could just add on that too, just um rec centers are incredibly popular um with um middle school and high school students, and so uh just giving my two cents uh as community engagement, like those stakeholders um going to all the places that they are at.

Um and ideally with food is a great way to get knowing teenagers myself, that's that that seems to work.

Is that it?

Okay, I I would just kind of jump in on the current upcoming projects and just sort of note that there's actually a few others that I so uh Reinekers Lane is the bike lanes have been installed on uh Reiner Kirch Lane.

Um that's really a very nice uh connection now for people headed north to the King Street station.

So you and make a left on the King Street very quickly because you have a nice traffic light, you make your right of Reinekers and bing, you're right in the bike light.

So it's that's a really nice add.

And I understand diagonals coming very soon once the uh markings get in on which Marcus uh should thank you uh for staff for that.

See, I still have one other on the I'm sorry.

Um I thought it's marked them.

Nope.

Um I don't actually have anything, a question on on the items that are on here.

These are all great.

I had a question about something that we don't get in staff updates, and I'm wondering if we could get any stopped updates.

I think we're all aware that since we last met, there's been four or five possibly more pedestrian or bike uh crashes involving cars.

I know we get crash data when we're looking at specific projects, um, but I think both from a community perspective and for myself as a board uh member, just like every month getting any stats, so maybe like in the lot since last meeting or year to date or something, could just be really helpful because it helps kind of keep those things visible and and seeing where these scopes um, you know, what the scope and locations are um and not waiting until we're looking at individual projects.

Um so is that something that could be incorporated into our the written staff updates every month?

Awesome.

And I promise not to bug you about bike share on the west end if we get those.

I'll give you a couple of months you're out on that again.

Okay, anything else.

Um I would second Kirsten's comment that was what better well put than I was going to comment on.

So thank you.

Um as I was looking at A on Mill Road, uh, I was I couldn't figure out where the boundary way um where it cited that drivers increased in speeding.

I'm not sure where like where exactly within the neighborhood is that I just couldn't find out about.

I think it's south of Eisenhower as they're approaching the Iowa, right?

They're approaching um that's like sort of near the like a town hall where the like gate comes out onto Mill Road, right?

Is that where we're at?

Or mill and mill and mill connect.

Right to the piece of it.

And then um, I know that this has come up in past discussions and questions, so I apologize for asking about it again, but I think staff said they would be monitoring the light on Mill where it turns into Jameson because there's like a uh protected left that often just sits there because there's no cars turning left.

Um, that seems like it could it was maybe is right to just be a green with a yield left because it turns into basically the dog park and the hotel.

Um so I didn't know if that was one that had any additional information.

Yeah, I would sort of add to that.

Um I I think that was when we first were approving that project, we had talked about that that particular intersection.

So it's on the east side of where Mill intersects with uh Jameson and each phase gets its own priority, and you can you just sit through the three phases before you can go uh forward through it.

And I think at the time we'd sort of asked if the uh light could be better automated or the programming could be adjusted when there is no uh call for uh a left turn to not bother with the left turn.

Yeah, I actually do recall raising that because I go through there pretty frequently picked up clue trees, and I'm sitting at that like constantly with the left turn, just with with nobody there, and it's just like this is 45 seconds of my life.

I would also say I think that improvements in that intersection satellites would help by set list too, because that's that two-step by crossing two.

And I will say it has been challenging for me to be like, when can I actually go right across yeah?

And I think that's one of the general comments about cycle tracks, which is getting in and out of the cycle tracks, and as those of you come forward as ideas for the city to consider it's the entering and exiting until this is uh something that really needs to be thought through a bit.

Okay, well, thank you for the updates.

Yeah, I think I'm right.

We're on number eight, which is spanning restricted overnight parking district threshold in place, yes.

Trying to decide whether it's standard.

Um so uh last month or the month before, you all approved um or recommended to the city manager to approve the creation of a new uh overnight parking district uh in Beverly Hills neighborhood, become singing about 10 blocks.

Um while that process was going through, we received another request for a small cul de sac that's kind of encompassed by that entire area that was not included in the original petitioning process.

Um again, it's a fully resident-led process.

Um, I helped coordinate with the residents, but um, you know, it's up to them to bring forward their proposal and go through the process that way.

So uh we've already received our first um expansion uh request.

Uh this call to second the public question place, as you can see, it's still called the orange.

Um it's just off of the uh 600 block of Tennessee Avenue, so it's pretty close to uh you know West Cleave and the entrance to the neighborhood.

So the neighbors, the neighbors you know, noted um seeing a lot of vehicles with out of state plates, commercial vehicles, that sort of thing that the rest of the neighborhood uh theirs increase.

So they wanted to expand the district to include um their sack.

It's uh just about um seven houses.

Every every house on the call stack does have off street parking.

So it's no um here is the petition from all the houses as well as the houses that uh run onto Tennessee Avenue that comprises the entire block.

Um in terms of outreach, the project champion did go door to door, got a signature uh support from every single house on the block.

Um I did email the North Ridge Civic Association earlier this month.

Uh no response.

Um, and we did post one public notice on the call stack as well last week always do.

Uh so we never received any complaints.

Uh, don't see any issues why we wouldn't uh expand this.

So staff recommends the board, recommended city manager approved the extension of the overnight parking district to include pressure place.

Uh thanks, Max.

Any questions?

I have a couple, Max, and one of them is related to a letter we got uh tonight.

So can you go back to the map?

Yeah.

So the uh yeah, um it appears that uh the sledder writer was complaining about the reach of the uh parking district, and so how did we determine what we got with the boundaries here?

Um so yeah, again, this is a fully resident-led process, and so I helped coordinate and explain to them what comprises a block.

Unfortunately, you know, the neighborhood was developed at a time when you know winding roads were more popular.

So we had a little bit of a difficult time determining where the block on uh old dominion technically ended.

And so that's how we came up with um you know the two houses, the the south um western extreme um extremity where Halcyon kind of cuts Old Dominion there, and so that's pretty much why we uh included that another reason was because that house there on the north side of Old Dominion, right at the southwestern extremity um had submitted several complaints uh via 301 and via email to me about drivers without a state plates, commercial vehicles, and then dumping trash and other liquor bottles and things onto their lawn.

So that was another reason why we extended that.

So I'm question then is if somebody studies they don't want in this, how do they get out?

How do you opt to leave the parking district?

So for the ease and can ease and consistency of parking signage and enforcement, we try to ensure that whole block is included in a district.

So if you take you know a block in Old Town, there are plenty of people who don't want restrictions from front of their house, but we have to look at you know the a block holistically, and so we could ask them.

I've told other people, you know, you can petition to exit the um they'd need to go to the signature process again to and get their neighbors to get the whole block off.

So that's one of the letters that we got uh tonight.

So we just need to follow up on that.

And then my second question really is on the other side of Glebe Road because some of those people had commented, and so I'm a little struck that the only community that has you know spoken up was this uh call-de-sac, and have was there outreach to the uh other side to explain to them how they could uh sign up for this?

Yes, so I have spoken to several residents on several different streets, and um especially a lot of residents in some of the private townhouse neighborhoods, um like on Ebert, yes, yeah.

So um, yeah, Albert is a public street with public parking, but a lot of the private developments up and down West Gleep have private roadways, and so um and you know, those are built with you know two cars in mind, but if you have three or more, that's what people are parking there.

And so I have been helping them understand how the process works.

Um as I mentioned in the docker report, we do want to take just a little bit of a pause to give us some time to analyze if the signage is even working as effectively as we'd like it to, um, and see how things shake out over the summer and maybe revisit any expansion requests.

So, were there any other questions on this?

If not, do I have a motion?

There's if there are any answers online.

If you're interested in speaking on this item online, would you please uh raise your hand?

Okay, good.

Now I'll ask for a motion.

I'll do it.

Um I move that we recommend the city manager approve the expansion of restricted overnight parking district to include question place for a second.

Parking channel.

Okay, okay, all of those in favor.

I opposed six zero.

Thank you, Max.

Um number nine, also.

Yes, I am so that's a parking edition 1100, 1300, 1400 blocks of Duke Street.

Yes, and turn on right.

So uh sorry I didn't introduce myself earlier, but hello, traffic and parking board.

Um, I am Max Sevillers, and I'm the parking curbside management planner for the city.

Um, just wanted to start off.

You know, we all love a block like this, right?

Um the photo here makes most of us happy.

Um, it's not a pedestrianized winding alley of you know uh medieval quarter, but it's our American equivalent.

It's um a place that you know makes us feel good walking around urban USA.

It's um a place that you know makes us feel good walking around urban USA, and interestingly enough, this photo is actually taken on the 1200 block of Duke Street, where the neighboring blocks look like this.

Um so uh on the left, you can see just how wide that curbside lane is.

Um, that's the 1400 block of Duke, and um where parking is prohibited and has been prohibited for decades.

Uh, and that's the historic sanctuary for the Shiloh Baptist church on the left.

On the right, you can see how drivers take turns from and onto Duke quickly and dangerously, despite the presence of the presence of pedestrians, and in this case, me.

So um here is a view looking west of the 1100 block of Duke from a westbound driver's perspective.

Here is a view of uh uh looking east on the 1300 block of Duke from say a pedestrian's perspective crossing um at Southwest Street, and here is a view of the 1400 block uh looking west from a westbound driver's perspective.

So these blocks are hostile to everyone, um and they're pretty much hostile to everyone, but drivers looking to speed around one another, and they don't invite neighbors and colleagues and parishioners to mingle on the sidewalk or on the stoops in front of their houses.

And as someone who actually went and knocked on all these doors, it was a very uncomfortable experience.

And um, you kind of feel like you're falling into the roadway, or you're being pushed into the houses, and you know, when people come to their doors, they're opening them very very cautiously, and you know, why are you knocking on my door?

It's a very different experience from what I showed you earlier on the 1200 block.

So um, this is an aerial view of where parking is permitted on these four blocks today, and where it has been permitted for for decades.

So in blue, you can see the on-street parking.

Um, today I actually went in and added where the uh loading zone is in front of 1429 Duke, that's in yellow, and then purple is the disability parking space in front of the parking lot at 1415 Duke.

But as you can see, there are clear gaps on these four blocks, and I will dive into why.

Um, but our proposal today is to fill in those gaps, and that's shown here in uh highlighted in green.

Um, starting with the 1100 block, going all the way over to almost South Peyton Street.

So just to go back here, just wanted to add that on the 1200 block, we have 12 parking spaces on the 1300 block, six, and on the 1400 block nine, three of which are for loading zone, as you see in yellow, and one is a 24-hour uh disability parking space.

So here again is the view of the 1100 block.

It is um I've edited here to show you what our proposal includes, which is the addition of 75 feet of on-street parking um in front of the houses on the west side of the block.

And as you saw earlier, there is currently a painted white lane uh line.

Sorry, that as it gets closer to uh South Fayette, uh, it becomes about seven to eight feet wide, which is what we typically expect for a parking lane.

Um, and which is why we had uh proposed that here.

As you go east, that line gets closer and closer to the curb, so it doesn't make sense to parking there as the travel lines get closer to the curb there as well.

Actually, you're on there.

Is somebody looking at putting that tree back in?

I was gonna ask, are that trees or so?

I I didn't want to get you know too uh too too gushy here, but I do think that if you can build some kind of community here by slowing traffic down and making pedestrians feel more accommodated, people will take more pride into the street trees, um, which is um you know the onus is put on residents most of them.

Um and there was a really nice tree here, but it was uh cut down a couple years ago.

So who knows?

This is the 1300 block again, showing the um uh the proposed addition of on-street parking in front of 1321 Duke.

So uh east of here, you have the Freedom House Museum, which in this view is being uh renovated.

Um then you have some row homes to the east, and like I said before, on street parking is has existed there for decades.

Um the reason this is a really um interesting one.

This office building was actually renovated in 2019, and there was a parking garage entrance going on to Duke from there, which is why the no parking signage is there.

And when the renovation went through in 2019, the signage was never updated boarding.

So this one is a is pretty much a no-brainer.

Um will hopefully make that block feel much more comfortable.

This is the um eastern end of the 1400 block of Duke.

That's the historic sanctuary of the Shiloh Baptist Church, and their parking lot to the left.

Um this is also again, this goes back decades.

So I'm guessing here, but something that was a really common practice decades ago was to prohibit parking in front of institutions as a way to ensure there was no uh there were no vehicles ever obstructing the main entrance.

So uh that was done in front of hospitals, large parking buildings and churches.

Um then those uses basically had free reign to that space in front of their front of their building.

But that is something we no longer do in the city, nor in other jurisdictions because here in Alexandria, the city code explicitly prohibits using a no parking zone even for loading.

So we wouldn't want someone to be unloading in a no parking zone for a crosswalk or a bus stop or a bike lane.

So we want to try to keep things consistent.

So we steadily have been undoing this um throughout the city, but it's you know, it's hidden in little pockets here and there.

And then to the left, you can see there is a pretty long uh disability parking space.

Again, it's not 88 compliant.

Um both of the parking lots for 1401 and 1429 have adequate disability parking spaces that are ADA compliant.

So it's not like this is you know the only option for these facilities.

I thought we reviewed uh handicapp spaces.

Uh so for residences.

This is only commercial one.

Okay.

Yeah, so these don't get removed.

This is uh 1429 Duke, which is an office building owned by the church.

They have their own parking lot.

They also have an alley to the left that accesses to the rear for trash and other uses.

Uh, this is a loading zone, uh, time to limited loading zone that's been in place for decades as well.

Uh 8 a.m.

to 4 p.m.

on day through Friday.

Um, there is a daycare that will be shortly moving into the building, but the daycare has been required by the planning and zoning department to use the parking lots for uh pickup and drop off.

Um I think that's probably smartest uh given the speed heaps on Duke.

Um and like I said, it's required by planning zoning as part of their dopu plan.

So I think it makes sense here, given the change of uses of the office building to convert this into on-street parking as well.

Um my only hesitation with with leaving any loading zones or converting any of these to loading zone is the whole goal of this proposal is to ensure that there are vehicles parked along the curb at most times as a way to create that physical buffer for pedestrians.

And then finally at the western end of the block, we have about 40 feet of um of curb space where we can add some parking and not infringe too much of the travel lane.

As you see here, it starts to narrow.

Um just at about the end of 1447 Duke, it's 17 feet wide, that curbside travel lane.

As you get to South Baiton, it shrinks down to 15 feet.

So that's why we're proposing to end it here.

Hopefully, in the future, if um, you know, Duke gets or when Duke gets repaved, um, we can readjust the striping part of that process and then extend the parking down to the fire hydrant there.

This is just a photo I took in, you know, after parking my city vehicle illegally in the no parking zone in front of 1321 Duke, just to show you how much space there is between the travel lane and the driver's side for exiting a parked vehicle.

And this is uh just another photo I took to show.

Well, obviously, one of the public notices is up.

Um, but also the um to show just how wide this curbside lane is and how harrowing it can be for pedestrians who are crossing.

You know, many pedestrians, like I said earlier, have reported feeling like they fall into the streets or they're being pushed against the building.

Um, it's you know, especially deafening whenever you don't have cars as a physical buffer, um, which makes it difficult to maintain a conversation with people, um, and you just feel physically very vulnerable.

As you all are aware.

So with the uh curb space prioritization framework, um, I just wanted to you know mention that this segment is kind of a mix between residential and and commercial, and um, if you look at the framework, essentially the city plan priorities always come first, and that includes vision zero, um, vision zero, and you know, our mobility plan both point out how uh our how vehicular travel lanes and their width can effectively change how people behave in those segments.

And so the narrower the travel lane, the um the slower people tend to drive.

So if the people are driving slower, we can hopefully reduce um our crashes with more severe injuries, addressing you know priority number live.

Uh then access for people given the speeds on on Zook at this time.

We didn't think it made sense to add any um in street bike or scooter parking uh like we have in the past, um, or encouraging any businesses to open as parklet, for example.

Uh so um then for access for goods, as I mentioned before, all the buildings have their own off-street uh facilities for um for loading and unloading and for you know for their um for their trash, etc.

So uh the next category for both residential and commercial is parking.

So you can use this parking as a way to narrow that curbside lane to make it safer helpful.

Uh, in terms of outreach, uh we started off by reaching out to the Charlotte Baptist Church.

Um, because I had a feeling that this would be the most impactful to them, and they had the most to say about the proposal.

And so I reached out to them first along with the Freedom House Museum.

Uh, there is a disability parking space right in front of the Freedom House Museum.

The only thing that they asked is that that stay um untouched because that is their actual ADA compliant entrance to their building.

Um, whereas Charlotte Baptist Church was opposed largely because they noted that they've been using, like I said, the no parking zone on Duke to uh unload and load parishioners for special events.

Um sometimes they host blood drives, which they have the uh truck park there on Duke.

And so they think that having the parking will you know inhibit them from being able to use that space for free, which is true.

Um I did recommend that they could apply for temporary reserve parking once it becomes parking, and then it is essentially theirs, but that's something they'd have to pay for.

Um the other option I mentioned that they could apply for um or petition for loading zone on Southwest Street for them for the reason I mentioned earlier.

Uh just trying to add as much parking on Duke itself.

Um but another reason they were opposed because they think that Duke Street is too fast to be parking on.

So kind of a chicken or the egg.

Um, you know, you know, we're trying to address people speeding quickly, but how do you do that?

So anyway, um, we spoke to them quite a bit, emailed with them back and forth, spoke to them on the phone quite a bit.

Um that's where things rest it.

Um the new daycare that's coming in at 1429.

Uh, they would like to keep the loading zone out front, but as I mentioned before, um, and what I mentioned to them is the planning zoning department is prohibiting them from using that as for their drop off and pick up plan.

And they're supposed to be using the parking lots, which they were um accepting of when I emailed.

And um, like I said, I did go you know, door to door on the 1100 and 1400 blocks for King, and we got three residents in support for three households in support.

Um one was unsure.

We had uh 14 that didn't come to the door.

Um I also didn't receive anything uh after pushing the public notices.

Um, and I did give my car to a bunch of them and ask them, you know, to share information with their neighbors, and then we did get two residents who were opposed.

Um one of them mentioned she was concerned about you know the parking on the 1100 block.

Um effectively encouraging drivers to slow down and and exacerbating congestion on Duke.

So she didn't want to affect any congestion on Duke.

Um, another pair of residents on the same block uh we're concerned about the parked cars on the 1100 block obstructing the view for drivers who are turning onto South Fayette.

And so you know, my my argument there is obviously we're going to work with our engineering team to ensure that the site lines are adequate, but also the issue today is drivers use that almost like a highway uh slip lane.

And as I showed in that photo earlier, where I was trying to cross the street and the driver just did not care when your visibility isn't fully open and you have some obstruction, you tend to drive a little bit more safely because you don't know what's around the corner essentially.

Um like I said, we posted a public notice.

Um, so total six at each section where we're proposing changes, and we did not hear back from old Thompson.

So just wanted to go back to this, you know.

Um this is the 1200 block of Duke, surrounded by these other blocks that we've talked about before.

So, why delay replicating the same calming effect on these other three blocks?

Um when we have a perfect example right next door.

So to achieve this goal, staff recommends that the board recommended our TNS add up to 15 unrestricted uh parking spaces in front of uh you know on the 1100 block of Duke, 1300 block Duke and 1400 block of Duke.

Um convert a 60 foot long loading zone in front of 1429 Duke into three unrestricted parking spaces, convert a 30-foot long disability parking space in front of 1415 Duke into one space and implement a no-turn on red restriction for southbound traffic on Southwest Street approaching.

Thank you, Max.

Can you uh pull up your map showing where this proposed on red is because I think there's gonna be some discussion with this yeah?

So Southwest Street intersects with Dude between the 14 and 1300 blocks.

Okay, thanks.

Just leave that up there, I think for that.

So any questions we'll go this week.

We have a lot of questions, so have to go at the end, maybe.

Okay, we'll go this side then, Mark.

All right, yes.

Uh thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Uh full exposure.

Uh I live in this neighborhood, so I'm very familiar with it.

Uh I'm very supportive of the project.

I appreciate the great detailed work that's gone into it.

I do want to recommend making one addition to the project.

Um there is uh uh no turn on red restriction recommended uh for southbound traffic on Southwest Street approaching Duke Street.

Uh I would like to add to that uh implementing a no-turn on red restriction for northbound traffic on Southwest Street approaching Duke Street.

Um just to clarify that that's going to impact Jameson uh potentially.

So just keep that in mind when I mentioned Jameson before, and this is why it is relevant.

There is a uh fairly significant uh traffic flow that comes uh out of the Carlisle district uh along Jameson, which you can't see here, but it's not the right so but my point is that uh making this change here does should not necessarily impact what decisions were made on Holland Lane.

So you're just uh kind of complicating the analysis of Holland Lane.

Well, I'm not against it.

I just did no Jameson's kind of a separate issue.

I'm right, but Jameson is relevant here only in that there's a significant traffic flow there.

It goes then uh uh northbound on Southwest Street uh to take a right or eastbound on Duke, then headed off toward Route One or the Woodrow Wilson Bridge or wherever they're going.

Um right turn on red is currently permitted northbound there.

What you find, and you can't see it completely on that photograph, but I wonder um so I think has got photographs that will show you.

In fact, I'm sure he does.

Uh, that uh if you're familiar with the executive diner, like most people are uh you cannot comfortably see to the left as you approach that intersection.

You have the executive diner, you have the executive diner sign, uh you've got some foliage, uh, and you've got the traffic signal control box that have all essentially obstruct the driver's vision.

So that those drivers, many of whom are sort of trying to either jump the queue or get quickly onto Duke Street in order to make that right turn to go eastbound on Duke Street.

Uh in order to really see, and as you mentioned, traffic goes through fast on the street.

Uh they typically pull out uh into the intersection and actually uh occupy the pedestrian crosswalk, uh creating an unsafe uh in my view situation.

I cross that pedestrian very often.

Uh and sometimes you you know typically the the motors gonna be looking to the left, trying to find an interval of the traffic, and they're not looking to the right where the pedestrians trying to cross the road.

That's what happening in the Google's.

The red light, and there's 10 seconds left, and there's a car in the crosswalk.

Perfect, perfect, perfect.

That's great.

Yeah, and that's what you see.

So uh I'm in favor of the project.

I I don't know what other particular comments pain has, which I won't uh uh let him make, but in general, I'm in favor of the project, but I would want to uh uh add that one provided again, it would read essentially the same as the fourth bullet, except uh substituting northbound for southbound.

So you would do both southbound and northbound, no turn on red uh at that uh that intersection.

Thanks.

Sure.

Um would these parking spaces automatically get scoped into the um residential parking district?

Yes, so all those blocks are technically in uh residential parking district four, and so we are actually proposing to make these unrestricted to attract people to start using them.

And if in the future residents want to petition for restrictions on in front of their homes, they can do so by block basis.

But yeah, they wouldn't have to change the boundaries of the district.

But they would be scoped out.

No, they would still be in, yeah.

We're not we're not with no restrictions, but they're within the district.

Exactly.

Yeah.

You can be in a district and have no restrictions.

Um Max, this was great.

You did answer all of my questions in your presentation.

Um, and one of them was going to be have you thought about like a scooter corral?

Um, but I understand the point of like it's maybe not ready yet, but in five years we can talk about them.

Um I just had a quick question.

Uh it's not super clear from the visuals here, but are we assuming that like there would be with signage there'd be appropriate daylighting at those intersections where you're adding new is will there be any like extra daylighting, or would it be the right kind of the standard amount?

No, so we I'll be working with our transportation engineering um team to ensure that the side lines are are adequate for drivers.

Um that's why in the recommendation it's up to.

Um, but yes, I basically did all the measurements according to that ordinance, plus any other issues I saw on on the roadway uh quitting fire interface.

Thank you.

So we met earlier where I voiced my concerns that we're reinforcing car dependency in the name of pedestrian safety.

And I asked a number of the questions, and I guess my first question is I asked for some additional information that didn't need to be complete, but did you send me an email follow-up after our meeting?

No, so usually when we have these briefings, it gives us an opportunity to come back with the data to present it to everybody at the meeting.

So if you want to reiterate your questions, um I was I was honestly hoping to get some of that information before, but I guess I will reiterate now.

I see probably at least a few times a week on both the 1100 and the 1200 block, bicyclists heading west in traffic.

And as far as I can tell, and this is purely speculation on my part.

I think they are coming from South Old Town and they are transiting west, trying to get either to Fayette or to West Street, and there isn't a bike path there.

And so what they do is they ride in the road there.

And so I wondered how many biceps are traveling using that methodology.

Do we know?

Yes.

So we were able to extract some data from street light because of some nearby projects that are happening uh through BDOT.

So I was able to get on Friday afternoon um information on traffic volumes and speeds and that sort of thing.

Um from February of this season.

But all the bike, all the cyclist data is actually from before 2022 for some reason.

So our engineering team is trying to look into why that is and if we can get more recent data, uh, or if we just have to look at that.

Um, but they're still trying to figure that out because it's again, it's through V dot.

We don't have street light here at the city.

All right.

Um and I guess I think if we're gonna make access to curb prioritization as access for people, even if it's only a couple blocks, we should be doing that.

I will state straight out I don't like having to choose car dependency in this.

And I think we are reinforcing a bad habit, especially when we saw Mrabic.

And I think I raised this with you that I was concerned that once we grant this, we will not be able to remove that street parking without a big fight because people will grow to depend and rely and get used to the street parking, even if they are not using it now.

And we will not be able to alter our plans for Duke Street.

Um, I think.

Do you know when we last updated the street plans for Duke Street for this section of Duke Street?

For this section of Duke Street, no.

2016 was the last bike and pet master plan.

Um, so the last plans for this area were 1992.

No, no, no, but when they did the bike and master plan was 2016, and they laid out specific routes through the the city.

So you've got Wilkes Street, Prince, and Camden as the east-west along this corridor.

So I guess I would at least have liked to have an option for a bicycle inlet that we could debate.

Um, and absent a more considered intentional consideration, something that I feel would be more than just reinforcing an old habit that the city has done previously, even with safety benefits.

I want to be sure that we're making a long-term choice and not a short-term choice.

I want to be sure that we don't aren't creating another Braddock Road on Duke Street.

So because I don't think we've done our due diligence on this, not because I disagree with pedestrian safety, and not because I feel like this wouldn't provide some benefit, but more so because I feel like we haven't really considered whether an 1100 to 1200 block, whether this might be an appropriate time to remove parking, whether we are really prioritizing people in this.

I will have to post this.

Yeah, so just wanted to address the dependency issue.

So I totally get it.

Uh, that's absolutely not what our team does.

As you know, as the board knows, we remove parking for daylighting for bus stop ADA compliance for loading zones, you know, for for crosswalks all the time.

So this is a rare uh a rare change we're making to the city.

We do a lot more um metering and adding restrictions to parking than we do adding unrestricted parking.

So, like I said, this is very rare.

Uh in 2022, we added five spaces to the 500 block of Mount Brennan Avenue.

Those are actually two hour restricted.

Um, we added um we added uh 11 spaces to the 100 blocks of South and North Washington Street because we consolidated the bus stops there.

Um, and uh then we in 2024 we added uh 11 spaces to the thousand block of North Fayette.

So this is like a rare thing.

It's like a one senior thing.

I I get where you're coming from, and I'm not discounting the safety benefits, but I am saying if we do this, reversing it is going to be much much harder.

Yeah, people will prove for a lie on that, and if we do that, then changing Duke Street in a more significant way will become a much bigger fight than it already will be.

Yeah, and that's to address your second concern of what you just brought up now.

Is we yeah, we are um we're looking at two different roadways here, right?

Braddock has very much more limited um right-of-way here.

Duke is six lanes wide currently.

So it's a very different, you can't we can't really compare the two in terms of what we can do in the future.

So any street streetscape redesign we do in the future probably won't necessarily mean the removal of parking for bike facilities.

Right.

But it's required.

Um I guess what I'm saying is I want the option to be able to consider it with both the pros and the downsides, so that we can make a decision about whether we're prioritizing people because I feel like I'm being forced to choose between pedestrian safety and car dependency without really having the options available that I would prefer.

I get where you're coming from, but I see four as busy as Duke Street is, it is shocking to me the number of 1100 block bicyclists I see.

And I think at the very least, I would have liked to have a bike inlet so that people who are transiting from South Old Town, maybe coming from the community center, can hop in there, take it just to South Bayette, and then keep going north.

Because right now I think they hit like that South Patrick, uh Patrick and Henry and Duke Street intersections, and they're just stuck, and they're those sidewalks have a lot of utility pools and stuff in them.

And and the absence of that as an option means I don't think we've done our due diligence.

Very simple.

I I do appreciate the work.

Um if you brought it back to me in a couple in a month or two, I might vote for it.

But I think at this stage, I think it's premature.

And I think I have expressed that.

I would note that on uh on the issue of Patrick Street there.

I think it's next week or maybe the week after they're having the meeting to talk about some of the changes they're making on Patrick Street to slow the traffic down.

Okay, any other questions?

Yep.

Do we have any public speakers in that?

We had at least one speaker in the room.

Yeah, just patiently waiting.

Well, I'm Paul Schussler.

I'm a member of the uh board of the at uh Duke Condominium.

Um represent the unit zoners association of the Duke condominium, 58 units located at 1300 block of Duke Street, right across from good good chart to leave up there.

I I have some charts too.

If it don't know if you can bring them up.

Uh they received all the received.

Leaving this up there will do most to most of the good, and I can talk to I can talk to some of the others here.

Um it's a very active, walkable community.

I said 58 units, probably close to 100 people when you take it all into consideration.

What I'm here to do is uh, thanks to uh Mark, uh support very strongly the uh addition of the no right turn on red from the northbound West Street onto Duke.

Our folks are always headed out to Whole Foods to the Metro to King Street and a bunch of the nearby restaurants between there and Whole Foods.

Um the issues that we see, and uh there is a significant turning vehicle predestining conflicts at the corner.

Okay.

Uh there's a high volume of traffic and pedestrians in the late afternoon.

The dogs, strollers, you know, everybody is out, everybody's in their cars, and uh they see cars rolling through the stop sign.

They may stop, they roll through the stop sign to get all the way out so they can see the left.

That's what Mark described earlier as the the uh the executive diner, the electric box, uh trees, and the car in the left lane besides the ones that are going through.

So the difficult sight line, and uh that's why I'm primarily here.

Uh I want to support us strongly.

There's uh we've got at least one written uh uh uh paper from uh one of our residents, and uh I think we have one online, but I do want to I I did have a couple of pictures here that showed the uh looking down the crosswalk and across the cars.

I if not you it's in your pack, and you probably saw them.

Um but they um uh what I when we started looking at this.

We've had a we have a long-term project in our in the that the board's been working on to try to uh worry about the traffic on on uh Southwest Street and Jameson.

And I obviously you guys are working at it from some different the corner of Jameson Avenue and Southwest Street has no crosswalk from uh uh West Street uh across to Jameson Avenue.

Okay.

The left turn is from Jamison hardly touch stop as they come left and come down the street.

Uh the through traffic out of old town village and into old down village doesn't have to stop.

Um and uh there's a bike lane that runs right through there, comes out of old town village, zips down around the uh the corner to Jameson and back through that one direction, and also out to uh to Duke Street.

Uh our driveway.

We're coming out onto the onto the same corner there, and um so we're here to ask you to put that in your queue, okay.

I don't expect you to do anything tonight.

I I understand that, but in the long term, we'd like to see some help, and maybe I'm not the traffic engineer, but I would love a three-way stop sign there.

I dearly would like a crossing.

The other thing you should consider there's a very large daycare center in that corner, and the church traffic, it it's it's uh it's gotten worse in the 11-12 years I've lived in that place.

So um, and I'll close with one thing.

You guys talked about it earlier.

Just how will Holland Lane improvements impact what happens to us down at the other end of the street?

Thank you very much.

So I don't know if there's someone with their hand up on mine or not, ladies.

Um next speaker is Linda Canada.

Yeah, Linda Kennedy, Ruth.

Yes, you should be able to unmute.

Yes, can you hear me now?

So my name is Linda Canadine, and I actually live in the same building that Paula's discussing.

Uh and I was here to support that no turn on right, going from Duke uh West Northwest to Duke Street, and I'm a walker, and I cannot tell you how many times I've almost been hit trying to make that intersection or weaving between cars to do that.

So that's why I'm here.

But after hearing the conversation, I would actually like to comment that based on when I hear the outreach that you did on these parking spaces.

It doesn't sound like there is strong residential support.

And particularly with the church saying that they are opposed to it.

I would recommend that we at least take the parking away from in front of the church.

Um that's a historical building.

There's lots of people who come and take pictures of it.

Um, and so uh it's it just seems to me that you don't have a lot of local support um for the parking in general, and so it feels to me like maybe there should be a little more study about it.

Uh does it really slow down traffic?

Uh I can't imagine people trying to parallel park and having the traffic stop behind them while they try to parallel park into those spots.

So I actually have two comments now.

One on just the the basic parking in general, and then two, absolutely the no turn on red, um going from uh northwest street to uh east on Duke.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Our next speaker is Ruth Arnold.

You should be able to unmute.

Can you hear me now?

Yes, go ahead.

Um, I would absolutely like to reinforce what um Miss Ms.

Canada and Mr.

Schisler have just spoken about.

Um as a frequent pedestrian and sometimes a driver, I have been very scared many times by the people turning left, turning right, I'm sorry, at the bottom of of West Street onto Duke.

And as Mr.

Schisser said, they they creep out, and I in my car, I have had to do the same thing.

You have to creep right out over that crosswalk in order to see um from the left.

And it's it uh I have several times been nearly hit by somebody who was looking to the left and turning right.

Um very, very scary.

And then equally the suggested crosswalk from West to Jemison.

Again, it's you you have to you take your life in your hands crossing over there now.

And it would be really, really helpful to have a crosswalk there and something to slow down the traffic coming from Old Town Village.

Recently I was creeping out of our driveway, and there was nothing coming down Jameson, creeping out, and then suddenly on my left, this car comes shooting through from Old Town Village.

And I had to slam on the brakes.

So both those things I really really enforce um that you can look at those and see whether something could be done for us.

It would be very, very helpful and much appreciated.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Oh any.

Um, so uh this no-turn on red on North West Street.

Do you have any thoughts or concerns about that?

Again, we have to have recommended.

We checked with um, we'd received the comment letters and sent them to the engineering staff, and they were supportive.

Okay, thank you.

Supportive of uh restricting uh no turn on red northbound.

I also did want to follow up.

So that comment mentions that people will creep out because of low visibility to the left.

Um is there any kind of structural engineering we can do because it does look like the executive diner pushes out pretty far into the visibility.

Um so I could definitely see people pulling into that crosswalk because they can't see around the executive diner.

But we're addressing that by getting rid of the no-turn on red.

Um that makes sense.

Sorry.

You have any other comments, or if anyone else would like to speak, please raise your hand now.

Last call.

Okay, I have a couple of comments.

One is that um this is not the first time we've encountered the situations on the no turn on red where we've done one side but not the other side.

So I I think I'd asked this once before, but I'd like to ask again that when we're looking at intersections that we holistically look at the intersection and don't just sort of go one side and say done, um, but sort of take a hard look at a particular intersection when we're opening it up for examination and just get all four sites or only four um on some of the intersections, just so that uh kind of get that surface to from the get-go, and I think that would uh help.

And then in terms of um West Street there between uh Duke Street and the whole town of Depth.

Uh that is really a tricky intersection.

So I would uh at least like to ask that uh staff sort of put that on the plate of uh places to look because I do uh when I ride my bike through there, I I've had some really very close encounters with motor vehicles who don't stop at the stop sign.

Uh and adding the crosswalk, I think would be really worth looking at.

Uh so I've encouraged that to sort of show up on a plate somewhere.

Look at that carefully.

Um yes.

Is there a publicly available map of where all the no-turn on rents are on Alexandria?

Oh, I don't know.

Also, this came up well common letters.

stop at the stop sign uh and adding the crosswalk I think would be really worth looking at uh so I've encouraged that to sort of show up on a plate somewhere folks uh look at that carefully um yes is there a publicly available map of where all the no turn on rents are on Alexandria oh I don't know so this came up well public common letters I was asking um you know for input from the hearing and also uh late streets on this uh the head of the meeting and uh Alex Carroll shared that she's working on a comprehensive no turn on red analysis and map with the GAS team currently and that will be something that you'll see in the future so I don't think you can see it on a map but I think if you click on you know a traffic light you can actually see that it's a no turn on red or get it's got the LPI uh programmed into it also so it's not intuitive just looking at the map uh if you look at the traffic lights but I think if you click on an individual light you can actually see more information about that given one but I think that I I think it would be helpful to have that more easily seen okay any other questions do I have a motion uh I would move that the board recommended the director of key and ES and I will say and then I will read for the record uh all four of the staff recommendations shown here uh adding a fifth one regarding the no turn on red so I read it all under the record for the uh recommend number one add up to 15 unrestricted on street parking spaces in front of 1119 to 1125 duke 1321 duke 1401 do 1447 duke and convert a 60 foot long living zone in front of 1429 Duke Street into up to three unrestricted on street parking spaces and convert the 30 foot long disability parking space in front of 1415 Duke Street into one unrestricted on street parking space and implement a no turn on red restriction for southbound traffic on southwest street approaching Duke Street and implement a no turn on red restriction for northbound traffic on Southwest Street approach of Duke Street is there a second second any is there any discussion none all those in favor aye aye and opposed no okay so that's five to one uh thank you max for that presentation okay so we're on the item 10 staff updates okay and then commissioner updates any commissioner updates okay well I have several um legacy oh I've got plenty of I'm mostly uh so uh from the Transportation Commission uh meeting last week or last yeah I guess that was just um it was actually a pretty uh pretty quick meeting uh the biggest thing we did was we voted for a chair and uh a vice chair so Tim Latin is going to be the chair which is pretty interesting because Tim is a former city council member um so it's nice to kind of see him back in a leadership role uh again um we got a whole chunk of uh uh written updates uh but we also and I think uh perhaps Katie can uh speak to this a little bit we uh got uh we approved the goal strategic plan for fiscal year uh 2027 2031 but it was very comprehensive but if maybe you could give a couple highlights of that though before you do uh one thing I would say is the document itself is actually really pretty cool so I would recommend and maybe we can add a link uh uh to it for the board to look at and just get a real sense of uh what was done but that I I know it's still a draft right um well so hopefully you all know what Coalics is but for those of you who don't go Alex is the city's program to help promote all the different ways people around and something that falls within the transportation department and specifically in clinical services so um as a requirement for some of the grant funding that we get the department uh rental vision requires us to have a strategic plan for the next five years to identify the different programs and projects we want to um apply for and use grant funding for and where in that time frame time span uh we would be doing those projects so this project gave us a good opportunity to look at what we've been doing uh what we want to continue what we want to stop what new things we want to do um one thing that we did determine was um uh looking at uh students as a target customer recognizing that students will be our next generation uh public transit users and want to make sure that they are uh aware of the options early on that they're comfortable

So this project gave us a good opportunity to look at what we've been doing, uh what we want to continue, what we want to stop, what new things we want to do.

Um we did determine was um uh looking at uh students as a target customer, recognizing that students will be our next generation uh public transit users and want to make sure that they are uh aware of the options early on that they're comfortable when using the bus, the metro station, biking.

Um so a lot of the programs that we are going to be focusing on in the next five years is educating and to have promoting some of the uh student benefits, for example, the uh grant that we received recently to have free metro access for um high school students.

So helping them understand how to use that.

Um the other thing that I wanted to highlight was some of the pilot program.

So looking towards what um Washington, I believe Arlington do with e-bikes and implementing some incentive program that we're a Lindian library and/or Linding Library as a way to help some of those car light households who just need that extra push to eliminate a car or eliminate all our cars and recognize how they uh the incentive might to help them that's in.

And then the last thing I'd say is um we included a suite of programs around recognition.

So um when you were talking about the before and after for Ha and Lane, just sort of showcasing um some of the projects that the city, the transportation department, go alex are part of and making sure that the community is aware that this is where some of the uh grant money, the tax money, the developer contributions that some that's those dollars at work and helping people understand what's on with that.

Um so the transportation commission did um review that plan, it's sharing it with the board as well.

Um, and then the city council will have to endorse it uh at one of their friends goes to the state.

Yeah, and I think VDOT is still one of the proposal on getting the approval because you guys took liberty um with a couple DRPT, yes.

Up DRPT.

So we we took a sort of a different approach to their template of the plan.

Maybe it is more useful, and what's the the meat of the plan sort of up front and a lot of the background material sorts?

So there is a lot of background information in that plan.

You can look at it, the appendix is probably two-thirds the actual document, the actual meat of the um quick kind of FYI comment as someone who is a frequent user of transit.

Um, one of the big headaches that I have had is Lamada's app that they're really pushing, doesn't include Dash Bus customs.

And so if I'm traveling around or honestly, Arlington's uh part bus either, it only includes formal Lamada buses, and that makes using that app in Alexandria incredibly difficult, and it is probably a hurdle for light and kind of transit sensitive folks.

Yeah, I would tell you there's actually a couple other apps that are beyond you can pull one up that even connects the bike share to the transit to the bus to the multiple buses and gives you a multitude of options.

So I would stop using them.

I mean, transit is the one I use, and I would highly recommend you download that.

Yeah, I don't use Lamana's F, but I it's the one that most people are unfamiliar with transit or yeah.

Okay, just a couple other things.

But thanks for uh for that.

Um so um you guys may remember that we approved the Eisenhower Metro crosswalk some long time ago.

Well, that project I went to the uh project meeting, but we also got updated at the uh transportation commission commission.

So that's gonna be kicking off here uh fairly uh soon.

It's gonna take quite a while to finish, but at least are gonna get uh started and certainly improved the experience for people crossing what we had approved way back some time ago.

Um another uh update was on the Duke Street and West Taylor run uh project, and and that was part of our um Duke Street Motion uh efforts, but also in terms of just approving some of the infrastructure around uh that intersection.

Uh they've uh kind of uh they're at 90% of the design plan, so they're very close to having completed the design plans and they gave uh a presentation uh and uh Ryan Knight uh presented that one.

So that's kind of moved along.

So and then the other uh update we got uh was uh something they're calling smart scan, which is equipping uh some of the city vehicles uh with scanning technology so that uh they can better um detect the condition of pavement pavements to sort of help the paving process, but in addition, they're also going to be able to scan some of the other stuff that the city includes on uh streets like signs uh don't actually have a comprehensive database of all the signs in the city, and there are lots of uh signs when you uh don't it's the car right out front.

Yeah, yeah, right.

Uh it's a pretty neat looking uh vehicle with all the uh technology uh built on it.

Anyway, I think that's gonna be a really big plus to get kind of understand some of the things that we end up asking about uh in terms of signage and uh what an intersection looks like in that.

Um so that was it from the transportation commission.

And then the last thing that I wanted to uh raise was the uh Braddock Road um uh project.

Um I have been tentatively uh asked to speak on behalf of the traffic and parking board at the city council meeting through that uh lengthy process.

Um I think there's multiple speakers going to be in front of me before I get to speak, but I want to be sure that I'm actually speaking uh for those of us who had uh voted on that uh project.

So I at this point would ask you if you have things that you think should be included um in uh what I uh uh be able to speak to the city council about about the about the project.

Um you know, I I think my initial thrust is is just uh that uh we certainly had uh heard from a uh great swath of the community in in both uh coming to the city council either online or in person, uh in addition to the many, many, many pages of letters and uh comments and pictures and received uh waiting through all of that.

And then for me, kind of the you know, the key uh takeaway was just trying to improve the experience for all users on our roadways, making it safe for all.

But I would look for other things that you all might want me to add to that.

Um in writing or yeah, uh, if you want to do it in writing, that's fine.

Um, I think we need to send it through you guys and then uh as long as you follow the sunshine.

Yeah, yeah.

So if you want to do it in right, if we don't discuss it here this evening, if you want to do something right, send it to staff and then they can send it back to everybody.

Well, yeah, I can tell you just briefly.

I think if you got the tenor, you may recall I offered an amendment to restore some parking segment three uh the project, uh, which I still support.

Also, as you may have gathered from my question tonight, it seems to me that uh the current uh uh proposal of a model would make for redevelopment, the eastern end of the quarter uh suggests that we need to uh revisit the entire concept also since this is proved to be uh an unpopular project with large segments of the community.

Uh I think we should try to work out a way to try to pull some of that uh those issues back in and try to refocus uh and do a a larger planning effort that hopefully would yield some results that are uh still very beneficial with regard to what we're trying to do.

Our project would work with what Lamada's trying to do for joint development in the area, which is gonna be tricky as we know in that area, and reasons um would help circulation in the overall area uh and would fit in with neighborhood and community goals.

So I know that's a large eastern shoe on, but it is important, and I would I I would like to put some of those issues in play, either I could submit a written comment or submit something separately or whatever you've read.

I think those are useful comments, Mark, but that wasn't actually how we voted right.

We we didn't discuss that.

And so the my charter is to pursue how we came to our decision at that meeting.

I I think if you don't want to take back your vote in essence, uh you certainly could do that, but I think that should be you individually as opposed to what the board had voted six to nothing on or to go forward.

Yes, opposed that and I think that's part of the records of the meeting.

So yeah, so it was like one thirty in the morning when we were finally voting, and so I was like, I'm not gonna make this meeting go any longer.

And there was um so and I intend to submit my own comments about why I voted the way I did.

Um, but uh I didn't hear anything compelling for from the people opposed to the project um in the many hours of testimony, nothing that would make me um change the way that I voted.

Uh I we hear a lot of these questions or comments about like emergency response.

Um, and Alex did a very good job of explaining how emergency response would probably be better.

Um, and again, we heard again from the fire department as we always do, that like they're good with the project.

Um having, I think, and I agree it that it stands to reason if there's one travel lane and then one lane that is for bikes, and then also flexible school like this um that could be used by an emergency vehicle if necessary.

I think that's far preferable to having two clogged lanes, though they are not clogged most of the time.

I right um I the other two before I get off on a tangent.

The other two things that I um the two like buckets that I think are really important.

Uh one is of course safety of all users.

Um when Tim spoke about trying to get his daughter in a wheelchair around on the sidewalk on Braddock Road, and then you go to Braddock Road and it's just like curb cuts and telephone poles.

We need to accommodate that.

Um, and I we need to accommodate everybody who wants to use Braddock Road um to have all of these homes have places they can park their cars.

Uh, and so we need other people to be able to use that road.

Um, and that gets to my third point, which is what kind of city do we want to be?

Do we want to be a city where one mile coming from the metro station?

There's multimodal transportation, like we can use, we have bike lanes coming to and from the first mile from the uh metro station, or do we just want to keep things exactly the way they are?

Braddock Road is not a neighborhood street.

Um, I know that has been used that way, uh, and is now being used that way more by people who are parking their cars in front of their houses now that they know that parking might get taken away.

Um, but it is uh it is the one east-west possibility we have to get from the metro station to like other neighborhoods along Braddock.

Um and I think we've already lost on Duke Street, and so like we need Braddock Road to have pipelines on um similarly.

I think you know, I'm I'm I will submit a comment sort of reflecting the reasons why and convincing reasons I was persuaded to to vote in support of the recommendation.

I think some I think a point that might be helpful um for council, especially with some newer council members on there is as that this was nothing cooked up in isolation out of nowhere someday because somebody said, gee, it'd be nice to have a bike lane here.

Yeah, it's that it is a piece of a long-term plan.

Multiple councils have approved master plans.

There have been long-term safety analyses done there.

There are three three schools.

I hear two a lot, but I haven't along the satellite campus, and I've got to like a shout out.

There are three schools in the in the project zone.

Um public.

Three public schools, yes.

Um, and so the safe routes to schools plans, these are all pieces of the puzzle that come in.

And so it is critically important because networks only work if they're networks, not isolated pieces.

And so again, as somebody who has transited through that corridor many times in three different modes, um, you know, there are bike lanes on either end of the project corridor, and it's weird that there's not a bike lane in between, but that the safety concerns um, you know, are really key, and that we look at safety.

The city has a process and plan, and it's a sometimes painfully slow process and plan to look at things holistically and how the pieces fit together, and that this was um part of that holistic process.

And then I think the one other thing, um, perhaps it's uh just a petty um personal thing.

You know, I I think the public and getting it in the record that as board members we do review the whole packet.

You know, I think that I've seen and received some comments saying like I didn't interview, and I think my family can attest.

I spent a lot of time reading all almost 1200 pages that we got in advance, including things that we got, you know, right, you know, out in the in the hours before the meeting.

And so I think that's just helpful that it was a um thoughtful, carefully thought out.

I trust that my fellow board members similarly reviewed the entire packet um and thought carefully about it coming into the meeting and listened carefully to Alex's excellent presentation.

Um, and you know, thoughtfully absorbed the comments, the live and Zoom comments that night as well.

Um this was not made sort of as a rubber stamp decision.

I guess yeah, I guess I I would I'm also planning on submitting sort of a personal support for why I voted the way I did.

But I would say the first reason, of course, is safety, and and the second is we need this bike network.

Um I found staff's persuasively addressed a lot of the opposition testimony in their presentation, even before the comments were received.

And also that a lot of the comments were I felt um kind of dismissive of the need for bicycles and pedestrians and really converting this road into something that is more user-friendly for all users.

Um and I felt like having a better dialogue would have helped a lot with this project, but I'm not sure from what I've seen in other projects how we get that better dialogue.

Um I think part of that is to stay grounded in a lot of the factual evidence submitted.

Staff did a very good job on showcasing induced demand for bicycles on the their traffic studies have generally been excellent.

Thank you so much for that, by the way.

Um, I found their parking study particularly persuasive here, especially compared with the parking district that we approved the same night with over 75% parking utilization.

And here the parking utilization was significantly less.

And so every every concern about parking was actually addressed in that parking study, and to the extent we could have the um the uh uh disability part of the mobility parking around the church.

I think staff did a good job of trying to support the church in that regard as well.

Thank you.

Uh any other additional comments.

I feel like I have to add something about well, I would come back to your initial comment about hearing um clearly a lot of uh feedback from people who both strongly opposed and strongly supported it.

Um I you know, as much as my vote is influenced by me as an individual.

I think part of what all of us being on this board is about is hearing from the community, hearing from the residents of the city, whether they're residents of the community being most directly affected or residents from elsewhere in the city who also have a demand or use or need to use parts of the city that are public goods, um, which I think includes a street and the public parking that is located on that street.

Right.

Um still early.

I think we've gotten to the end of the agenda.

Yeah.

Okay.

So um our next meeting is Monday, May 18th, which will be after the uh city council is heard and heard on the Reddit Road.

So we don't have a motion to adjourn.

Oh moved.

Second.

Second.

On fair thank you all very much.

Thank you, Steph.

Yep.

Yeah, do we know where the meeting will be on the 18th?

DVD.

Unfortunately I got a call today that can't say I have to move it.

So I will let you know.

Okay.

You may have to move it again from here or from Bell Power I I don't want to commit to anything.

So you don't have any end but we have to get there it's going to be not an answer in the town.

I think we should get it so we can move to say like what's a place that's very well I could